


Nightmare Haunting a Dream

by Anathema_Cat



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Light Angst, M/M, Mention of death of child, Unrelated Fíli and Kíli
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 11:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4135653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anathema_Cat/pseuds/Anathema_Cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fili’s recurring nightmare features spider webs, creepy eyes, a forest devoid of sunlight, inability to reach the one he loves, and a lot of panic… as nightmares do. His dream becomes more intense as he struggles to process a recent tragedy and a strange old book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmare Haunting a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Book/Dream theme on [Durins everywhere!](http://in-the-love-of-durin.tumblr.com/tagged/theme-18). Thank you to the wonderful beta jx437 (aka [pyxis-142](http://pyxis-142.tumblr.com/))!

Fili pushed an exhausted hand into the web. The dirty white mass barely gave. _What kind of creature could produce something this strong?_ He didn't want to know, feared he would find out. 

He snapped his swords out in a smooth motion despite his fatigue. _Swords?_ His body knew what to do as he swung toward the ropes with his right arm. The sword sunk through a strand, stopped. Fili pushed, sighed, sheathed his left sword, and used the beautifully crafted blade like a saw. The tacky web grabbed at the tool, requiring more pressure from Fili's tired arm than he expected. 

Something skittered on the ground ahead and to his left. He froze. It was too dark to see past the surrounding webs that somehow bobbed and swayed in the still, dank air. A gasp, quickly suppressed, straight ahead. _Kili._

He jammed his sword over his head into its scabbard and yanked out an axe. He hacked the webs, finally made it through one, rushed into another. More skittering on either side. The things were walking with him. He felt that if he could just reach Kili, everything would be okay, though how that could be in this dim maze of horror made no sense. He kept hacking, his arms were going numb, creatures tracked him, he no longer heard anything from Kili… 

*****

He yelled, Kili was shaking him, something was breathing on his face, oh God, no… His eyes flew open with a start.

Disoriented in the darkness, he focused on the soft surface beneath him and the most beautiful sound in the world. “Fee? Fili, sweetheart, it’s okay, I’m here,” his husband murmured. Gentle thumbs traced Fili’s mustache and blunt nails slid down through close-cropped beard. He loved when Kili did that.

“Kili?”

“I’m here. You were dreaming again.”

“Oh. Oh good,” Fili whispered, hand seeking Kili’s. “It felt so real.”

Fili’s heartbeat had yet to slow. He found Kili’s hand, grasped it like a frightened child. Kili squeezed back, resting it on Fili’s stomach. Kili leaned in, hair tickling Fili’s cheek, and with his lips brushed Fili’s forehead, cheekbones, mouth, chin. 

Fili focused on Kili and breathing. Finally, he felt his body relaxing. “I’ve never had dreams keep hold of me like this, Kee.”

“You’re okay, I’m here.”

*****

"Put that book away," Kili grumbled, squinting up at Fili from under the covers.

"It's a good distraction," Fili mumbled.

"Can't you take it in the living room or something?"

"I got the book light so I could read in bed," Fili responded, eyes still on the page. "You've never complained before."

"You’ve never read this late before."

Fili sighed, marked his place, and gently set the old book on the night stand. "I'm afraid to sleep."

Kili wriggled an arm out of the covers and grasped Fili's hand. "Lie down."

Fili thumbed the book light off, accepting that he wasn't going back to the book. He slid down next to his husband and rolled toward him, the hand holding Kili's wrapping around his middle. 

Kili lifted his hand, kissed it. "You did all you could."

"I know that. Still hurts."

"It'll just take time."

"How long?" 

"You know a woman died my first night as EMT."

Fili nodded. 

"I've seen a lot of people die now. Most faces are blurs. Not hers. Her face, her blood, her last gasp for air is clear in my head as on the night she died. I'll never forget her, and I don't want to. But it doesn't hurt like it used to. It's just a part of me."

Fili nodded again. He'd met Kili, a paramedic, just after he certified as EMT. He'd seen people die, too. This was different. It -

"You get used to it. Jaded?" Kili murmured.

"Are you? Jaded?"

"I. Yes. No, that wasn't the right word. I'm... I'm just used to it. I've seen enough death that it doesn't affect me so strongly anymore. Although." He paused, took a slow breath. "I've never experienced the death of a child that young. I. That would hurt."

"I've never wanted to save anyone so badly," Fili whispered, tears welling in his eyes. He hated crying, and he'd done a sickening amount of it lately.

Kili glided soft thumbs over the tears as they spilled, leaned in to kiss them away. "It is okay to cry, you know?"

"Shut up," Fili said with a choked laugh. "You don't like crying either."

"Doesn't mean it's not okay," Kili smiled, then quietly, "Life requires it sometimes."

*****

Fili pushed an exhausted hand into the dense web. Giant trees surrounded him, rose on twisted grey trunks into a black sky. The very air, though still and stuffy, seemed to twist. He couldn't quite see straight, couldn't quite catch his breath. 

He'd axed his way through web after web, tripped in the tangled undergrowth, still unable to find his brother. _Brother? I don't have..._ And why wasn’t he on the path? The path was forbidding, too, but at least free of webs.

"It's this place. The Mirkwood they call it." A voice muttered behind him. Fili didn't bother a glance. He had to reach his brother.

Skittering and scuffling sounded on either side as he worked on another web. He still thought he could hear Kili struggling to breathe somewhere ahead. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the webs to avoid pale bulbous eyes that tracked him.

Hungry, thirsty, being watched, and- Kili screaming. _Oh, Mahal, no!_

*****

Fili awoke drenched in sweat. Kili stroked his head, murmured words of comfort.

*****

“What is that book about anyway?” Kili grumbled from under the covers, which he had pulled all the way over his head. 

“Reincarnation,” Fili mumbled, absently chewing on a broken thumb nail. “I think.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.” Fili placed the thumb in the book and looked toward Kili’s head. “I found it in that old box of my grandmother’s. It’s about the history of reincarnation beliefs in different religions. Kind of. I can’t tell if it’s fiction or non-fiction or some blending of the two. It’s very weird.”

“Um. Remind me why you’re reading it.”

“It’s fascinating. It’s like reading a dream. NOT a nightmare,” Fili ground out before Kili could protest. “And it’s keeping my mind off of … him.”

Kili pulled the sheet down enough for his sympathetic eyes to show. Fili knew Kili wouldn’t argue with that. And he didn’t want to go to sleep.

*****

The webs were keeping him from his brother, the white-eyed creatures, now hissing to each other, were herding them forward. A pulsing of the heavy air weighed on his head, and yet, somehow he felt if he could just say the right thing, make the right move, he could banish the white eyes, the webs, the fear. 

“Terrible love,” he whispered, not what he meant to say. He had been cutting down webs for ages, he didn’t know how he was still moving. 

Kili yelled his name, and again, his voice receding. “Kili, I’m coming. Kili, I love- No. Just hold on!”

Now his mind was going. The thirst, the fatigue, the gloom, the eyes, the fear had him swaying, the axe dropping from limp hands. “I love. My brother? No,” Fili croaked. “Yes. It doesn’t matter now. I have to save him. Save us. Oh, Kili, your voice is swallowing my soul.” 

“Where am I?” Fili never thought someone could feel himself going insane. Somehow that didn’t seem fair. He tore at a web with his hands. He couldn’t go crazy yet, they had to get out of here.

*****

“Fili, wake up,” Kili yelled, shaking Fili’s shoulders. “Come on, wake up.”

Fili had never heard panic in Kili’s voice, even on the worst jobs. “We can’t be together, Kili.”

“ _What_ are you talking about?” Another shake. “You divorcing me in your sleep?”

Fili swam up from black depths, tried to force his eyes open. “Where am I?” he whispered.

“Fili, damn it, wake up.”

Fili’s eyes popped open, closed as light seared them. “Too bright.”

“Shit,” Kili sighed and flopped down on the bed. “I couldn’t wake you up.” 

He clambered up to dim the light, climbed back in bed. 

“What happened?” Fili whispered, mouth dry.

“You tell me. You were tossing and turning, crying out, sweating. And I couldn’t wake you. This is going too far.”

“Too far?”

“These nightmares of yours.”

“I can’t help my dreams, Kili,” Fili said, frustrated. As if he wanted them. “I’ve been trying not to sleep. Doesn’t work.”

Kili scrubbed his face with his hands. “Maybe you need more sleep. Maybe you need to see someone about what happened. Maybe you need to get rid of that damned book.”

“What does the book have to do with it?”

“The nightmares started the night you started reading it.”

*****

"Put the book away, please."

"I was dreaming about the boy who died before I found this book. I can't go back to that."

"I could wake you from those."

"Kee," the older man whispered. "I can't get his face out of my head during the day. I don't want to dream it, too."

Kili clambered up to straddle Fili's legs, gently took the book, marked his page, and set it on the stand. He leaned forward, wrapped his arms around Fili's neck, and kissed his forehead. 

Fili tilted his head up for a soft kiss, gazed into deep concerned eyes.

"Maybe the dreams of the boy were your way of working through the pain," Kili said. "I think you might need to let them come."

Fili looked down, his forehead just resting on Kili's strong chest. He wrapped his arms around Kili's waist. "Maybe," he whispered.

*****

Kili had gone silent. Fili knew now he’d never reach his brother. He was sure the things with the skittering legs and the white eyes had him. Probably had everyone with whom they had entered this horrible place. He hacked one-handed at a web. His other arm was tangled in the sticky threads of unyielding web. 

He heard yelling in the distance. He doubted it meant anything good.

*****

Fili woke up once again to Kili shaking him. “Fili! That’s it. I’m trashing the book.” A warm hand held down his shaking arm. He just nodded weakly.

*****

“Did you get rid of it?” Kili asked as Fili wrapped himself around the love of his life. 

“I couldn’t bring myself to do that,” Fili answered. “But it’s in the bottom of the box in the back of the attic.”

“Thank you.”

Fili kissed the lightly tanned shoulder, took a deep breath. “I may not let you go tonight.”

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t tell you something about the nightmare.”

“Hm?”

“We were brothers,” Fili said softly. “I. I loved you, though. I mean. Like now. It wasn’t right.”

Kili rolled over, examined Fili’s face. “It was a very long time ago," Fili continued. "But I have this feeling I can’t shake. That it was us. And that I could’ve saved you. From something.”

Fili sighed. “And I don’t know what happened to you.” 

Kili touched their foreheads together, rested a hand on Fili’s neck. “It was a dream.”

Fili opened his mouth to protest, but Kili cut him off. “Or it means we’re meant to be together. If you believe in that sort of nonsense.” A grin.

Fili could accept that. Would. Whatever he had dreamed, it was over now. He tried to banish his disquiet, forced a grin that turned into a genuine smile to match Kili’s. “I guess we’re meant to be together.”


End file.
